Serendipity
by Technoelfie
Summary: [InuyashaNaruto crossover] It's spring in Tokyo and Kagome dreams of mirrors. When the well reopens, will it bring more than one surprise? KakashiKagome
1. Fallen

_Disclaimer:_ Not mine.

_Fanart:_ Links can be found in my profile.

* * *

x **Serendipity** x

_Chapter 1: Fallen_

On a cool Tokyo night, a creature oozed out of a magic well. It did so with great difficulty, working against the pull of the still-open vortex that had transported it and now seemed to try and suck it back in. For a moment the vortex appeared to be winning, but then a powerful tremor rippled through the gelatinous mass and the creature propelled itself over the edge of the well and onto the hard-packed dirt floor.

It lay there for a while, seemingly exhausted, its amorphous body heaving rhythmically in what looked suspiciously like breathing.

Its thoughts were still a jumbled mess, erratic electric discharges located by sheer habit where its head had once been, but one thought was clear and knife-edge cold.

It _hated_ the well.

The well wouldn't let it through. It had needed to be forced, a waste of precious energy that should have been reserved for the transformation. And it had opened up here, of all places, here, where the air stank of spiritual energy and wards were everywhere, eating away at its defenses.

And then there was the tree, a terrible shadow looming just outside, waiting, waiting...

It had to leave. It had to leave _now_.

It slithered awkwardly towards the wooden wall of the shed, where it burst apart, slipping out through cracks in the old wood.

Wherever it had touched the aged timber a trail of slime remained, glistening silver in the semi-darkness.

Outside it was night. A half-moon shone brightly, illuminating the creature as it hurried across the shrine grounds, circumventing the menacing shadow of the old tree as well as the main house, from which pure energy blazed like a beacon.

It only stopped when it was well away from the shrine, well hidden in the concave pool of shadow between two street lamps. Only then did it examine its surroundings, from the strangely shaped lamps to the perfect flatness of the asphalt and the monstrous buildings crowding the city skyline.

Even though it had no nose any longer it gave in to habit and scented the air, which was heavy with the smells of exhaust, metal and humans. Millions of them.

Most importantly, the air smelled of opportunity.

Mollified, the creature turned and slid leisurely away.

xXx

Kagome dreamed of mirrors.

They were all around her, a solid wall of glass that should have shown her reflection but didn't. Instead they were grey and empty and somehow expectant. They _hovered_.

Kagome shrank back, hands gripping the folds for her uniform skirt so hard her knuckles turned white. The skirt was too small for her, she noticed dimly, and uncomfortably tight at the waist.

It was hard to breathe, but when a little white-haired girl stepped out from between the mirrors, it became impossible.

Kagome whimpered. There were too many mirrors, feeling malicious and alive, crowding her. She couldn't escape them all. And she definitely couldn't escape _her_.

"I won't let you take my soul," Kagome choked out, barely keeping the tears of desperation at bay. "I _won't_."

When had she become so frail and afraid? It must have been something that came with adulthood, when she'd shed her teenage self like an old layer of skin she must have lost her courage too; perhaps she had simply left it on the other side of the well along with her bow and the last sweets for Shippo.

And as she stood there trembling, she wondered whether simply disappearing would be worse than this unfinished ache in her chest. Her reflection in the mirrors looked small and lost. Faded. Would it be so bad to simply let that last bit of herself fade away too?

_Yes_, she told herself fiercely. _Yes, it would. I'm still me, I won't let her take me away._

But Kanna just looked at her with sad eyes. "There's nothing there to take," she said quietly and then Kagome woke up to the darkness of her bedroom, crying with great, heaving sobs.

When dawn came it was to an overcast sky. As the grey light filtered through the blinds Kagome finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

xXx

Unlike reading, crouching in the dirt in the middle of an abandoned village while the sun was hot and high in the sky was not exactly one of Hatake Kakashi's favourite pastimes. He wished someone had bothered to ask him before sending him out on a mission that had hitherto consumed five full weeks of his life by filling them up with adrenaline, insects and badly cooked rodents. Sadly, Godaime was not in the habit of asking and so here he was, sweating beneath his mask and wishing he had taken the time to shave.

However, seeing how he had been on a hunt for several weeks with only mosquitos for company -- and the occasional unfortunate rabbit -- there hadn't been much point. Besides, the weather had not left him much time for shaving. Torrential rain had a habit of erasing both scents and physical evidence so he'd had to hurry, and he'd missed meals and sleep. It didn't help that at night he had only the foul energy echo of his prey for company, and of course insects.

Five weeks of that ensured that he was currently tired, cross, and not at all sure why his chase seemed to have come to a very sudden end in a dilapidated shrine, of all places. He did get that tingly feeling at the base of his spine that told him to sit up and pay attention because it might be a Bad Thing, though. Either that, or a mosquito had finally found its way inside his trousers.

Six hour later daylight was fading and Kakashi was increasingly certain the tingling hadn't been a mosquito after all. He rubbed the back of his neck, sighing.

"Anything, Pakkun?" he asked wearily.

A small and remarkably ugly canine head peeked out at him from behind a tree stump. "Nothing," replied the dog. "What's left of this tree's a bit strange, so I wouldn't necessarily pee on it, but that thing you're looking for didn't come here anyway. It's gone straight into the well if I'm any judge, and it didn't come back out either."

The other dogs nodded. They tended to let Pakkun do the talking.

Kakashi frowned at the well.

There was nothing remarkable about it except perhaps how ancient it was, its rickety frame sunken and moldy, but the trail ended right there. Hours of meticulous examination hadn't changed the fact that it just stopped right at the lip of the well. He was sure of it, and his dogs, who all had better noses than he did, concurred.

Kakashi was a cautious man. Confronted with the choice of whether to jump into a rather deep well where at best something spiky might be waiting for him at the bottom, or wait until he got a better idea, he would have preferred to wait. He was _good_ at waiting. Too bad that in this particular instance waiting was not an option.

"Pakkun," he called. "I'm going in. I need you to go back to Konoha and report to Tsunade. Tell her to send reinforcements if she can spare them. Someone who's good at sealing, a Hyuuga if she can."

Pakkun peered suspiciously down the well. "You sure?"

Kakashi considered the question. He couldn't afford to give away too much of his chakra, but holding Pakkun had never been a great drain on his resources. The other dogs were much more firmly entrenched their own dimension, so maintaining a summon that involved all of them was more of an effort, even if they were good trackers.

"I'm sure," said Kakashi, reshaping the web of the summoning with a few quick seals. As the other dogs vanished in a puff of smoke, Pakkun shrugged.

"Suit yourself." With a large leap that seemed much too powerful for his small body, the dog vanished in the underbrush.

Kakashi leapt into the mouth of the well, bracing himself for an impact that never came.

Instead he fell, spinning, into a strange night where the stars singed his skin and the void was thick as water, drowning him.

Genjutsu, he thought, trying to form a seal only to find that his hands were gone and he was being twisted inside, pulled apart like honey, and then he stopped thinking at all because there was an ocean stretching to infinity beneath him and the waves rose hungrily to meet him.

There was no air. He tried to swim to the surface but the water weighed him down like lead. Through the red veil of suffocation he could dimly see his own reflection struggling to get free. The mask stretched across his face and throat like slime, choking him, and he tore it down to reveal Obito's face staring back at him out of empty eyes, his undulating silver hair slowly bleeding to black.

In its socket the sharingan burned, violently drawing chakra to fuel its mad spin and Kakashi felt his limbs go slack and his lungs seize as he was hurled forward into the night.

Somewhere in the wilderness a small dog gave a surprised yelp and vanished in a puff of smoke.

xXx

Kakashi awoke to warmth, darkness, and the faint smell of cat.

He had never felt so sick in his life. He was perilously close to throwing up and only years of discipline forced the bile back down his throat. The acute feeling of disorientation was unfamiliar as well, the nagging sense that something was off but he couldn't put his finger on what it was, and he'd rather not know anyway because it was bound to annoy him.

Vaguely, he wondered what had him so on edge. Blinking away the cobwebs from his eyes, he propped himself on one elbow to look blearily at his surroundings. It was hard to see well in the grey darkness; shapes and shadows flickered and danced before his eyes, shifting in and out of focus. He smelled and heard more than he saw -- the mingled scents of dry wood and dust and old metal and an odd, staccato rumble in the distance.

He seemed to be in some sort of shed whose owner did not seem to possess a broom but owned -- or was owned by -- a cat. And a bicycle. And, surprisingly, no skulls or torture implements whatsoever.

Kakashi sat up carefully, mentally cataloguing each one of the muscles that screamed in protest at the movement. It slowly dawned on him that he was obviously not dead if his various aches and pains were any indication. Of course he might still be trapped in a genjutsu, but by now his eyes had adjusted to the scarce lighting and so he dismissed that possibility rather quickly after a thorough look at his surroundings.

Here and there minute cracks in the wooden walls let some silvery light spill through, catching on dust motes that were too delicate, too different and too unevenly scattered for an illusion. Besides, the insidious, pervasive smell of feline incontinence had a definite realness about it. A cautious sniff had been enough to make it very clear that the cat who lived here was very real indeed and enjoyed a varied diet which allowed it to create a complex, _textured_ scent which had settled in his nose and refused to budge, growing more distinct with each passing minute.

Kakashi tamped down on his rising irritation. Being alive was unsettling as he had no idea whatsoever how exactly he had managed it, but no more so than the feeling that he'd been taking a long vacation away from his body and in the meantime someone else had slipped in. He felt crowded inside his own skin and itchy on the outside, as if legions of ants were marching over him, plucking at his chakra.

Besides, he hadn't felt this dizzy or this ill in a long time. The nausea dragged back murky memories of several drunken binges with Genma after the war, after ANBU. At the time, being either sick or drunk for half of the week had been rather useful for taking his mind off being alive. It was the other half of the week that had been the actual problem.

If he recalled right, the solution had included working so much his brain became pleasantly fuzzy with exhaustion and didn't feel the need to suddenly take off on unwanted tangents. He had also managed to avoid sleep to the point that when he finally gave in his rest resembled a coma. Dreams had a way of creeping up on you; he preferred not to let them.

Bracing for the pain, Kakashi rose fluidly to his feet. It was time to take a little walk.

To the eyes of the cat dozing on a pile of boxes at the back of the shed it looked as if the strange visitor had simply vanished.

Buyo yawned. It might prove difficult to trip up that one on the stairs, he mused, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have fun trying. He went back to sleep with strategies dancing merrily through his feline mind.

xXx

The sky was not the same.

It was one of the first things Kakashi noticed, because a ninja must always look underneath the underneath and that involved _up _as well as down even if there was only a clear sky above you, hemmed in by buildings that were too tall, too rectangular and lit like fireworks, swallowing the horizon.

The stars were all wrong, arranged in haphazard clumps instead of constellations, oddly dim because the city itself was a sea of multicolored light.

He wasn't shocked. He dealt in the unexpected, the strange, the horrible. But he was surprised to find himself unsettled, and feeling oddly alone.

At least the city could not fully obliterate the innate tranquility of the shrine grounds. Kakashi decided he did not want to venture out into the city so soon without information, therefore he would have to make do with the tree, which looked solid, strangely familiar, and was tall enough to offer a good view of the surroundings.

Touching down lightly on a sturdy branch, he took a deep breath of the night air and immediately regretted it. The smell was not new, still the same mixture of fried food, garbage, and fuel with a vague undertone of smoke, but it was uncomfortably intense all of a sudden. He wondered how long it would take him to get used to a smell this acrid. It would probably be a few days until his sensitive nose adjusted; until then, he would have to live with the smell coating his taste buds.

He was in a large, sprawling city, he could already tell that much. The earth was nearly bent under the weight of huge buildings, and already hundreds of thousands of sleeping people were manifesting as a shimmer of chakra at the edge of his awareness. Large vehicles thundered through the streets, translating as a faint vibration in the wood beneath his feet.

He adjusted his position for a better view at the main house. There had been a well-fed cat in the shed and the gravel was freshly raked so he knew someone had to live there, but he could only sense them if he concentrated, and even then the impressions were oddly muffled.

The windows were unlit, but the shadows within were curious little shapes and towards the back of the house a second floor window was ajar.

Kakashi had never believed in making things harder than they had to be.

However, he hadn't expected it to be quite this easy. The wall was easily scaled, one well-calculated leap bringing the window sill in reach of his gloved hand, followed by a twist of his torso that propelled him further up, then back down to a precarious landing on the narrow sill. Carefully, he pushed the window inward with one finger, taking care not to make a sound. He moved into the room like smoke, taking note of the odd tingle of power that ran over his skin like water and filing it away for further examination.

A poorly executed seal, no doubt, but why would someone attempt to seal a room like this? It was a child's room, but the clothes and shoes strewn haphazardly about belonged to an adult. There was a desk, and, hidden away in the corner, a narrow bed, outlined in patches of watery moonlight.

A girl was lying in the bed, glowing gently.

She was deeply asleep, her chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths, which was probably why he was taken by surprise as she suddenly opened her eyes to stare right at him.

"Would you please put the fire out already?" she muttered. "It tickles."

xXx

In her sleep, Kagome stirred.

Someone was banging a tambourine right next to her bed and it was giving her a headache. She opened her mouth to give them a piece of her mind, reconsidering when she saw it was a half-naked Hojo with brightly colored feathers in his hair.

"Ah, it's only you," she mumbled, and went back to sleep thinking how strange it was that even with no shirt on, he still managed to bore her to tears.

The next time she was jolted awake by the smell of smoke.

Hojo was still there, dancing around the bed dressed as a medicine man, waving polaroids at her and chanting unintelligibly. As far as Kagome could tell through a haze of righteous indignance, most of them depicted Ayumi and himself in various stages of debauchery.

Kagome frowned at him. It wasn't enough that after years of nearly canine devotion he had suddenly performed an ninety degree turn and shacked up with her best friend, now he had to rub her face in it too. So what if she had spent years fleeing from his well-meaning gifts and his movie invitations? That didn't mean she'd given him leave to fall in love with someone else now, did it? Especially if that someone was her best friend.

One of her best friends.

A good friend she hadn't called in over a month.

A girl who got enough sleep and had better hair than her.

Whatever.

The _point_ was that Kagome felt cheated and she told Hojo so but he only grinned at her and sang louder.

On her bed, the flames danced. Kagome glared at them, and then at Hojo.

Really, even if he wanted a fire, he shouldn't have made it on her blanket. What was wrong with the carpet? She told him to put it out and went back to sleep, promising herself that next time, she would dream of something _interesting_.

Time passed.

A stray beam of moonlight tickled her face. She rubbed her cheek against the pillow and suddenly her skin was tingling all over.

There was a strange presence in her room. This was not exactly a bad thing - many of her more pleasant dreams started out like that and progressed to such things as the shedding of many clothes followed by stimulating and sweaty exercise.

_Finally_, she thought, arching luxuriously into the feeling.

A faint new scent hovered in the air, pine and grass and fresh spring leaves. It reminded Kagome of the Sengoku Jidai and for a moment she thought of Inuyasha, but the familiar ache was worn thin by use and therefore fleeting. What remained was the comforting aroma of the forest, and beneath it, barely discernible, the ozone prickle of youki.

If she hadn't been firmly asleep Kagome might have been frightened. Real youkai were dangerous after all, whereas dream youkai were promising in ways a shirtless Hojo could never manage, no matter how many feathers he stuck in his hair.

Kagome bit her lip and risked a small anticipatory glance through lowered lashes.

At first there was a blur, which solidified into a man. Rather unmistakably too, Kagome thought happily.

Of course it was hard to say anything definite by squinting at his crotch while trying to appear asleep, but Kagome was pretty sure that he was male, although his pants were drab and baggy. Still, his shoulders were broad, his hips narrow and he appeared to have long legs. So far so good.

However, she soon realized with a twinge of disappointment that he was not exactly youkai-like. Further careful squinting led her to believe that he was indeed as far removed from a youkai as it was possible to be -- unless there was a race of David Bowie-shaped youkai she had yet to meet, all of them lost in the Land of the Eighties.

Kagome was starting to feel frustrated with herself. Honestly, how hard could it be to conjure up a decent sex object in one's dreams? She didn't even need to be creative -- Sesshoumaru would have been perfectly suited provided he was naked and kept his mouth shut, and Kouga was always prancing about half-naked anyway, so no effort whatsoever would have been involved _there_. But no, her subconscious had to go and try something new, and look what happened.

Seriously, why did this kind of thing always happen to her?

Even for a dream apparition he was peculiar. A dark mask covered the lower half of his face and a broad headband sat askew on his silver hair, effectively obscuring one of his eyes. And as if that weren't enough he wore the ugliest para-military clothing she had ever seen. _And_ he wore sandals without any socks, and his pants were too short. If he and his fashion sense were indeed a product of her brain, she clearly needed to be shot.

But peculiar as he was, he was quite plainly the only source of youki in the room. It was rather more youki than she'd first thought, too, and as very real dread started to trickle icily down her spine it suddenly dawned on Kagome that this might be no dream after all.

"Good evening," said the youkai in a pleasant voice.

Kagome frowned blearily at him. "Any chance that I'm still asleep and you're actually good-looking in disguise?"

He didn't dignify that with a reply. Instead, he merely watched her -- looking, if anything, even more sleepy than she felt. And terribly bored.

His youki, however, was another story. It filled the room, nearly suffocating in its intensity.

Kagome inched closer to the edge of the bed, trying to look nonchalant and probably failing. "That headband is very... 1986," she remarked weakly. "And I suppose puke green is the new black or you wouldn't be wearing so much of it, right?"

He smiled. The nuances of his smile were swallowed by the mask, but the faint impression of thin and curling shadows was somehow worse than an outright display of teeth would have been. Kagome became aware that she had started to sweat through her nightgown with fluffy dogs on it, and also that he could probably smell the change in her scent.

This was bad. A regular youkai would have insulted her choice of sleeping attire by now, called her 'miko' or 'wench' or perhaps mentioned a harem and tried to impress her with the size of his weapon. A regular youkai would have worn lipstick or at least eyeliner and his hair longer.

This one however seemed bent on confusing her. He must have been in her room for at least a few minutes and not even one mention of inferior humans had passed his lips. He seemed content to just stand there, looking odd and smiling in a way that made the hairs on her neck stand up.

Kagome straightened her shoulders. It was time to _do_ something.

Her fingers dug into the mattress as she leaned forward, eyes flashing. Or at least she hoped they were flashing -- her eyelids felt rather like lead, and the dark circles underneath usually made her look slightly panda-like. She decided she would at least try to be a menacing panda.

"Are-- are you trying to frighten me?" she demanded with false bravado. "B-because if you _are_, I'll have to let you know that it's working."

Well. That hadn't come out quite right.

The youkai let out a surprised chuckle, confusing her further. She had expected him to sound evil when he laughed, possibly even insane and here he went and disappointed her yet again. She knew evil laughter when she heard it, and this wasn't it.

"Well? _Are_ you?" she insisted testily. There was a cold, hard knot of anxiety in her stomach that she couldn't seem to shake, and it was even more annoying than it was surprising. Here she'd spent her last few years at home cultivating apathy and denial, and the moment a youkai appeared in her bedroom she regressed to adrenaline city. It didn't seem fair.

"Actually no," he returned. "I was meaning to ask for directions. I'm... lost."

Kagome gaped at him. "You're lost. And you just happened to stumble into my room?"

"I can be amazingly clumsy," he replied placidly. "Besides, I was fleeing from your cat."

"Your nose is growing."

He gave her a strange look. "It is?"

She waved a hand magnanimously. "Never mind. Before we tackle the question of how you managed to stumble up two stories and through my _locked_ window, let's just begin by recalling how you came to skulk over the shrine grounds at night in the first place, okay?"

He shrugged. "Of course. But I would like to ask you something first. You are aware that you glow in your sleep and there is a rather strange well in your shed?"

The blood drained from her face as she finally, irrevocably realized that he was definitely _not_ a dream and she was sitting in bed unarmed; her practice bow was under the bed, gathering dust, hopelessly out of reach for someone who had to compete with youkai speed.

"I see," he said after a long minute. He wasn't looking so ridiculous now, painted in fear and moonlight and the ghostly haze of his youki.

He could kill her any minute now and she might not even see him coming.

"Who sent you?" Kagome burst out. "And how did you know it was in the shed? We were careful! And I haven't been there for years!"

"I come from the other side," Kakashi replied, watching her dispassionately. "And now I am lost," he added. His task appeared to be turning into a long-term mission in uncharted territory; creating ties to the natives was one of the first textbook moves. Encountering this particular girl might have been a stroke of luck, he thought, since so far she had been a fountain of information without even opening her mouth. She was obviously sensitive to his chakra or she would have never woken up from what he'd made sure was a perfectly deep sleep, and she knew something about the nature of the well.

Just now, the expression on her face had gone from fear to compassion to a strange, desperate anger, and suddenly he knew without a doubt that she was sympathetic to him even if he didn't know why. He relaxed. As angry and confused as she seemed now, he could still work with her compassion, mold and twist it until it served his purposes.

Kakashi turned a pleasantly blank face to the girl who was now trembling, whether from fury or something else he couldn't quite tell.

"If you're not here to kill me sit down," she told him tightly. "And start at the beginning."

Kakashi looked into her large, frightened eyes and tried to decide how much truth he should weave into the lies. She was afraid, yes, but she also looked to be the meddlesome type, well-intentioned and foolhardy. The type a good general would send first into the breach to draw enemy fire so the seasoned sodiers would be free to attack. And he must be growing sentimental in his old age, because he suddenly knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not want her involved.

"I am not the only one who came through," he finally said, with just a touch of drama. "Something else passed through the well before I did, something dangerous."

xXx

He did not start at the beginning, which involved a long and bloody history of intrigue and forbidden jutsus and clan secrets, none of which were his to tell. But he did tell her of his mission, and of entering the well on his world only to find himself hurled through some sort of portal into her own. He took care to leave out the more gruesome details of his experience.

"Have you lost the trail now?" Kagome wanted to know. The idea of an alien vampiric blob of slime slithering its way through the Tokyo canalization was... quite funny actually. Of course, once the initial hilarity had faded and she was finally able to wipe the tears away and stop giggling, a girl with a strong sense of civic duty couldn't help worrying at least a little.

Kakashi had no trouble remaining completely serious. "No, there's still an echo outside the grounds," he said, "but it's weaker than I thought. I'm not sure why that is."

Chewing on her lower lip, Kagome shrugged. "I can't feel anything."

"It was here," he said evenly. "And you are still alive only because it was in a hurry."

Her slim eyebrows drew together in a delicate frown. There was a fleeting memory of spidery darkness and hollow mirrors and something barely human with a void behind its eyes. Kagome felt a chill spread through her.

"But what _is_ it?" she demanded. "You haven't really told me anything so far. Well, only that it's... blobby. And slimy. And possibly green." She tried to assume a solemn expression by pressing her twitching lips together but failed miserably. "Don't look at me like that," she muttered. "It's your fault. You didn't _have_ to mention the blobbiness."

"It used to be a girl, before she died," Kakashi said, putting an abrupt end to Kagome's amusement. In fact, she looked even more stricken than the news warranted. "What's left of her should be barely human now," he added, watching her reaction carefully. "It must have changed some more since it came through, it might even have abandoned its body entirely."

"You know, I think I might have... sensed it," Kagome muttered. It was hard to admit to supernatural powers in front of a complete stranger, even if he'd seen her glow in her sleep. But he was leaning so familiarly against her desk, as if he belonged there, and she had to admit that the darkness invited such confessions.

"It was gone quickly, so what I got was really vague. I thought I was dreaming. Now that I think about it, it actually felt a bit like Kanna, and I--" she broke off, biting her lip.

He glanced over, but a passing cloud had obscured the moon and it was too dark to read his expression. When he spoke it was a long while later, and his voice was smooth and dark, compassionate but not so much as to be stifling.

"Kanna?"

His voice carried the tone of someone who had seen horrible things and survived them, someone who could_ understand_. It was warm and inviting and suddenly Kagome wanted to spill it all, tell him her whole life story in one long, breathless, liberating rush, but beneath the layers of warmth and wisdom, barely discernible, there was a tiny sliver of cold calculation, a practiced edge. It was the voice of a man who would do anything for information.

Kagome realized she had been leaning towards him and drew back, feeling cold all of a sudden.

"No one special," she said airily. "Just a little girl I used to know."

Kakashi looked down at her hands, now clenched around the fabric of her blanket. "I see," he said into the hostile silence. And he did.

But Kagome didn't know that and so she lifted her chin with a tiny, mutinous jerk and said, "I'm sure." And then, with false cheer, "You'll probably want to have a look around the city soon. We'll have to get you some new clothes tomorrow. Oh, and you'll have to lose the mask. It's not allowed to walk around with your face covered."

Kakashi just looked at her.

"I'm serious," she said. "You can't keep it on."

He shifted and his slouch grew more pronounced. "I understand," he said calmly. "I assume you will need to pay for the clothing?"

Kagome blinked. "Er, yes. It doesn't exactly grow on trees."

"You are very generous," he said, ignoring her barb. "I will try to find a way to return the money as soon as possible."

Kagome softened a little. He was a long way from home on a dangerous mission in a world he did not know anything about and here she was, grousing at him because he'd tried to find out things.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to be like that. You must be worried," she added, ignoring the fact that he looked quite comfortable slouching against her desk, "and uneasy, and confused, and a thousand other things I can't even begin to imagine, and I--"

"Not overmuch," Kakashi interjected smoothly, "but I am thankful for your concern." That last was said politely, with perfect form even if it looked strange coming from a David Bowie lookalike with a mask, but nevertheless Kagome got the impression he was laughing at her.

Well, she was a good person, she thought huffily. She knew how to turn the other cheek.

"You're welcome to stay at our home for as long as you like," she said therefore, ignoring him. "You should probably stay in my room until morning if it doesn't bother you to sleep on the floor. I'd rather not explain you to my family in the middle of the night," she added a touch apologetically. "My grandfather would try to stick ofudas on you, and that's not exactly good for his blood pressure. Besides, people would try to show you their Playstation and rub your ears and feed you, and we don't want that. Not at--" she peered at the alarm clock that blinked neon blue on the bedside table, "half past two in the morning."

She glowered at him. "You're _so_ lucky tomorrow's Sunday."

Kakashi, who had no idea what she was trying to tell him, nodded anyway.

"Of course," he said agreeably, immediately demonstrating his goodwill by sliding into a sitting position with his back propped up against the desk drawers. If he looked a little like someone placating a lunatic while doing it, both of them refrained from mentioning it.

"Well," Kagome muttered, still grouchy but also relieved. "Good night then." She was rather sure she wouldn't sleep a wink with his presence crowding her childhood room, but at least he was settled in for the night. She rolled over so her back was to him, drawing the blanket up to her chin.

What a strange girl, Kakashi thought, willing his muscles to relax against their wooden support. "Good night," he said aloud.

Slowly, the silence grew comfortable. The setting moon was slowly sinking below the trees, leaving the room dark and cool, when the girl's sleepy voice drew Kakashi out of his thoughts.

"Do you think you have a chance to catch it?"

He kept his voice light. "There are always ways," he replied carefully and a little cheesily. It would not do for her to take him too seriously.

"But you've been at it for so long," she whispered. "Don't you ever... I don't know, lose hope? Get sick of it or something?"

She sounded young and inexplicably wretched, and he did not want to dwell on why that might be. He let his head fall back against the edge of the desk, eyes closed. Damn, but he was tired. "It's only been a few weeks," he said gently. "I don't give up that easily."

"What do you mean?" she asked, sounding puzzled. "It was _months_ ago."

His eye snapped open. "Excuse me?"

"When it came through? I remember, because it was right after my birthday."

Kakashi felt the world tilt and slip away.

_Everyone I loved is dead._ A lie. He'd been such an idiot, and now he had no _time_.

No time at all.

He turned, flexed, and leapt out of the window, barely hearing the girl's hushed cry of "Wait! What are you _doing_?"

The shed door was stuck so he ripped it off its hinges. Two steps and he was vaulting over the lip of the well, falling, falling...

... hitting the ground _hard_, knee slamming into the beaten earth.

_No_. He must have done something wrong.

One gravity-defying jump later he was back on the surface, staring down into the dark mouth of the well. Maybe it had been the wrong trajectory? Again, he leapt up and let himself fall.

Nothing. Only dry earth under his palms and the muffled tick of the clock in his ears, precious seconds trickling like sand through his fingers.

_Damn it. _It was no use. He wouldn't lose control over something so minor. He had a mission still.

This time he climbed out of the well, fingers digging holes into the rock. He could see the girl, still dressed in her pajamas, peering worriedly down at him from above. As he pulled himself up and vaulted lightly over the edge he saw that she was barefoot and breathing hard. He pictured her thundering down the stairs in pursuit of him and wondered how she had managed not to wake her family.

She was searching his eyes. "It didn't work," she whispered sadly.

He got the feeling that she was talking to herself rather than him. "No," he replied. Her compassion was strangely soothing.

Hesitantly Kagome laid a hand on his forearm, feeling the steely tension in him as corded muscles leapt under her touch.

"There's nothing you can do," she said softly, wondering how it could hurt so much to say it aloud.

And still he just stood there, poised for... something. He probably didn't know himself.

"I've tried this for five years," she whispered. "I was here nearly every day, you know. I had this large yellow backpack, and I always brought it with me because if it worked Inuyasha would want ramen, and Shippo would want his sweets and--" She shook her head, smiling wryly as he finally turned his head to look blankly down at her. "I can't even count how many times I twisted an ankle or pulled a muscle, but I always came back. And then, one day, I just-- I just didn't anymore. I cried for a week and was a vegetable for one whole month after that."

Slowly, the tension beneath her fingertips loosened. His look lost that frightening intensity, too, and his whole body folded subtly into what she was coming to recognize as his unthreatening slouch.

"So, how does the well work?" he asked calmly.

She shrugged painfully. "I have no idea. It's magical. I think it pretty much does what it wants."

"Is that so," he murmured. At least he'd stopped himself from counting the seconds, he thought. There really didn't seem to be any point, and Hatake Kakashi didn't waste his time on pointless pursuits.

His feet felt like lead, nailing him to the ground.

With one last pat the girl removed her hand from his arm and stepped back. "What's your name?" she asked. "I'd call you Burglar-kun but it just wouldn't feel right anymore."

"Hatake Kakashi," he said flatly.

She gave a little bow and smiled up at him. "I'm Kagome," she said. "So, Hatake-san, what do you say we go back and try to get some sleep? My family will be out in force in the morning, and unlike us they're going to be rested and raring to go."

"Go where?"

"Er, nowhere." Her hand fluttered helplessly in an attempt to illustrate. "Just, you know, in general."

He pasted an answering smile on his face. "Of course," he murmured. "It was inconsiderate of me to keep you awake so long."

"Not at all," Kagome said. "Actually, I think it was exciting." And then she gave a little frown and didn't say anything else until they were back in the comforting darkness of her room and she had settled into the bed.

Kakashi walked to the far wall, sliding into a seated position amongst scattered articles of clothing.

"Sleep well, Hatake-san," Kagome whispered, pulling the covers up to her chin.

He stretched out his legs, settling more comfortably against the wall. "You can call me Kakashi."

"Okay then. Sleep well, Kakashi-kun," she replied, a trace of girlish giggle in her voice.

He sighed. "Good night, Kagome."

For the rest of the night he stared into the darkness, listening to her even breathing.


	2. Spiral

Unbetaed and therefore possibly quite horrible. I've reread it so often I just can't tell anymore. ;

* * *

x **Serendipity** x

_Chapter 2: Spiral_

A soft whimper woke Kakashi from the light sleep he had chosen to indulge in for the past hour. The sun had not yet risen but Kagome was already moving restlessly in a way that indicated she would awaken soon.

Shaking off the last traces of drowsiness from his own short slumber, he ran a hand over his face. The stubble was palpable even through the mask. His beard grew very slowly, he'd taken care of that, but even he wouldn't be able to avoid shaving much longer.

He took a look around the room, trying to summon up the will to move. The dull, grey light of dawn threw the mess of scattered paper and clothes on the floor in sharp relief and lent an unattractive blue-grey tinge to his own skin. The sun had come up over the horizon a few minutes ago, but a cloudy sky and a fine layer of morning mist allowed only the merest milky glow to seep through.

Thankfully, the morning air was crisp and chilly, waking him up and whipping him into action although he still felt hungover and vaguely troubled.

Intent on finding the bath, he rose smoothly to his feet. It would have been polite to ask Kagome, but she did not look as if she were very keen on being shaken awake at the crack of dawn.

He took a moment to study her as she lay on her stomach, snoring gently into the pillow. She was a conundrum; a grown woman who still lived with her parents, looked and behaved like a teenager, and glowed in the dark when she was scared. It was a riddle, albeit not a particularly challenging one. Nothing a good interrogation wouldn't cure, but later. He'd still sensed some lingering mistrust on her part the night before.

Well, he could afford to play the clown for a few days while he got his bearings and constructed a workable disguise so he could properly pursue his prey. And if the clown didn't work, he could always switch to lone wounded warrior. She seemed to respond to a good sob story.

Kagome sighed and turned on her back, running one hand over the sheets in a futile search for the blanket, which lay in a heap on the floor quite some way away from the bed. Still half-asleep, she mumbled her displeasure at this state of affairs and flung one arm across her eyes.

His lips twitched.

As an added bonus her shirt had ridden up as she squirmed, baring her midriff. It was practically an invitation, Kakashi told himself. It would be impolite not to look, and he was always polite.

Just like her face, her belly was exceedingly pretty to look at: nicely shaped, smooth and softly curved, with a tantalizing shadow at the small hollow of her bellybutton, but what drew his attention was the scar. White and shiny and_ large_, it looked as if she'd been savaged by a wild beast. Something with teeth -- no, claws -- had dug into her flesh and torn it apart, and yet the underlying swell of her hipbone seemed intact, which wasn't right at all. Her pelvis should have been shattered by the force of the impact. There should have been internal bleeding, and lots of it; her intestines would have spilled out of a gash that large.

Frowning, Kakashi wondered how exactly she had managed to heal a wound like that.

He quickly readjusted his expression to its customary sleepy boredom as Kagome's eyes fluttered open drowsily, focussing on him. The smile she gave him was sleepy but welcoming.

"Good morning," she murmured, then yawned. "Did you sleep at all?"

He gave her an impassive look, wondering why he didn't feel like conjuring up one of those easy-going smiles that said little and meant even less. "Enough," he said, watching with clinical interest as her own smile melted into insecurity. Given his rather gloomy mood, it surprised him how much fun it was to watch her squirm under his gaze.

Kagome felt her cheeks warm. "Right!" she said brightly, stumbling out of bed. "You need to be on your way soon! You'll probably need a flashlight for the sewers -- they always have one in movies. I think we have one in the kitchen--"

"There's no hurry."

"Okay, sure," she replied, flashing him a wide smile that didn't fool him one bit. She was concerned for him, which he found faintly endearing but mostly naive since she knew nothing about him, but he was making her nervous at the same time.

Kagome fidgeted._ What now_, she thought frantically, and, _This is really too awkward._

He was _looking_ at her.

Biting her lip, she slid a sideways glance towards him. In the light of day he looked decidedly ordinary, even a little scruffy. His pale hair was sticking up every which way and there was a shadow of fatigue beneath his one visble eye. He definitely had none of the sparkle she had come to expect from humanoid youkai, yet he still smelled like a mountain spring -- and nobody could convince her that was normal after a night of sleeping in one's clothes.

Even if they were such, er, _unique_ clothes.

Kagome promised herself that she would burn them at the earliest opportunity.

Gathering her courage -- the look he pinned her with was rather forbidding -- she pointed at his headband. "You'll have to take that off sometime, you know?"

Kakashi suppressed an involuntary frown at the suggestion but she was right; there was no sense in putting it off.

"True," he said, shrugging to indicate that he didn't care one way or the other. And since he was nothing if not reasonable, he hooked a finger beneath the flap and pulled. Bereft of its support his hair spilled forward, covering his forehead in haphazard silver strands.

He saw her eyes widen in surprise and then he blinked, because something wasn't right.

"Oh!" Kagome exclaimed. "Your eyes are two colors!"

Which was right, but then again it wasn't, because he wasn't supposed to _see_--

"And that scar looks very neat," she continued chattily. "It's not that noticeable either. Was it major surgery? We can cover it up with make-up if you want, although personally, I don't think it's necessary."

Kakashi stared at her, wondering if she was somehow deranged or merely very confused in the mornings.

"Well, the different colors look good on you," Kagome chirped. "And if nothing else works, you can always tell people they're contact lenses. Which one of your parents has the black eyes?" she asked conversationally.

"Kagome." Suddenly dizzy, Kakashi cleared his throat. "Do you have a mirror?" he asked hoarsely.

Kagome looked quizzically at him but started rummaging in her bag anyway. "Here!" she said triumphantly, holding up a tiny, smudged model. "It's a bit small though. I don't use it much, I never find it when I need it, and anyway, I don't wear all that much make-up--"

He plucked the mirror from her hand, tuning out the stream of chatter. "Thank you," he said absently, and then he said nothing at all because for the first time in years, he stared himself in the eyes in stereo.

The sharingan was gone.

In its place, the dark iris of a dead man stared back at him.

_Well. That's unexpected,_ he thought. Obviously, he was too experienced to go into shock, but the cold, practiced calm that suffused him felt brittle and artificial nevertheless.

"Is something wrong?" Kagome asked. Strangely, she sounded worried again and he wondered why. They barely knew each other after all.

_I'm not sure._ "No," he replied, and his voice sounded perfectly steady again.

"Okay!" Kagome said a tad too perkily. "Take your time about the mask, my mother won't mind. I'm sure Souta's going to think it's cool," she added with a nervous smile. He assumedthat_ I might need some time to prepare if you're horribly disfigured_ was the unspoken addendum.

But no, he was underestimating her. While she might be bothered about superficial things like the color and shape of his uniform, she did not seem the type to care about deeper flaws.

Kakashi smiled humourlessly. He had a vague feeling he should be more ceremonial about this, perhaps take a few days off to meditate and prepare, maybe even smoke one of those pipes filled with the _other_ kind of Konoha leaf -- purely for relaxation purposes of course. After all, nobody who had seen his face had ever survived and now he was going to have to let go of a habit so deeply ingrained it had become a part of who he was. And all in front of Kagome, who was probably close to his age but acted twelve most of the time and might or might not be clinically insane.

Strangely, he found that he didn't really care. Besides, he was rather anticipating her reaction.

Slowly, he pulled the mask up and over his head, mussing his silver hair and leaving his throat bare.

Kagome's eyes widened. And then she unexpectedly turned and left the room with a dignified "I'll be right back!". The click of the closing bathroom door was followed by the trickle of running water and furious toothbrush scrubbing.

Unaccustomed to the early morning vagaries of females, Kakashi threw a uncomprehending look at the door then shrugged inwardly. Maybe it simply was that time of the month, even though he couldn't say he smelled anything.

Pulling a well-worn book out of his weapons pouch, he settled down to wait.

xXx

With a groan Kagome bent over the sink, turning on the cold water.

_There was stubble. _

Why was there stubble? And since when did stubble send that kind of heated flash right to her groin?

Of course, if Kagome was honest with herself -- which right now she was not inclined to be -- the problem was not the stubble, but rather the face beneath, from the clean-cut jaw with its faint five-o-clock shadow, to the high cheekbones and straight nose and those languid, perpetually bored eyes that now seemed perfect when they had been merely strange before. Besides (and she approached the thought the way she might prod a sore tooth -- very carefully) there was his mouth.

One set of lips, fully functional, in perfect, _perfect_ shape actually, and she--

She. Did. Not. Want to dwell on the mouth. That way lay perdition, or at least death by spontaneous combustion.

Which might be good, because if she was dead at least she would have no opportunity to embarrass herself.

She snatched up the toothbrush, jamming it in her mouth. After scrubbing meticulously, she replaced the brush and toothpaste on the counter with great care to align them just right, all the while trying to ignore the way her body tingled.

The shower she took was quick and cold and did not help at all. That was the problem with youkai dreams -- they left her hot and achy and...

... and in no way resembled reality.

Real-life sex, Kagome reminded herself firmly, involved sweating, possible damage to expensive underwear, and was largely a sticky, short affair that smelled unpleasantly of latex.

Clenching her teeth she wrapped herself in a towel and went in search of clothes that might fit a man of Kakashi's size. As expected, she found them in Souta's room -- lately her brother had taken a liking to wearing oversized clothes and was collecting them in the most outrageous styles.

Feeling vindictive, Kagome grabbed a pair of black lace-up leather pants and a fire red t-shirt with green and blue piping that proclaimed its wearer to be the 'big boss', underneath a colorful, tattoo-like rendition of a dragon.

Satisfied, she collected another large towel from her brother's wardrobe and marched back into the bathroom to dry her hair.

xXx

When Kagome returned with her arms full of clothes, Kakashi saw that she had already changed out of her doggie pyjamas and into a light summer dress and flat sandals. Her hair fell straight and shiny down her slim shoulders and her face looked freshly -- and vigorously -- scrubbed.

She was alarmingly pretty.

As she handed him a large towel he noticed that, close up, she also looked painfully young. "You can have the shower now if you want," she murmured. "Do you want me to show you how it works?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I think I can manage, thank you."

"Oh, I nearly forgot! These are for you," she said, gesturing with the clothes she still held.

Kakashi eyed the colourful assortment dubiously. "Whose are they?"

"This first-class outfit belongs to Souta Higurashi, fashion victim," Kagome said disdainfully. "Sorry, but his whole wardrobe is like that. And they're the only clothes in your size that I could find."

Was it only his imagination, or did she look a little guilty? Kakashi shrugged. He'd worn worse, including lacy dresses and a prostitute's kimono that kept slipping off his shoulders.

_Everything for the mission, eh, Hatake?_

He thanked her again and picked up the clothes, disappearing into the bathroom.

When she heard the shower start Kagome sat down on the bed and tried very hard not to think of him naked.

On the other side of the door, Kakashi slipped a kunai from his pouch and started to shave. It was strange to see out of both eyes again, he mused as he scraped the stubble off his jaw. Apart from the scar that bisected his left eyelid and cheek, he looked nearly normal.

He might have to do something about the scar, though. He did not like to waste chakra, but without the constant drain of the sharingan he would be able to spare the tiny amount needed to keep up a small genjutsu over a prolonged period of time.

Carefully drawing the blade over his jugular vein, he formed a quick seal with his free hand.

Nothing changed.

He concentrated on the seal, but still nothing happened. The chakra was still there, flowing unimpeded through his body, but he couldn't seem to mold it.

At all.

_Well, fuck._

The shock was sudden, a violent delayed reaction to everything that had happened during the last few hours. His stomach seemed to bottom out at the same time that the bathroom floor tilted and slid out from beneath his feet. He reeled and very nearly fell but managed to catch himself with a white-knuckled grip on the sink.

The feel of the cool porcelain against his skin brought him back to his senses. Staring with glassy eyes at his own white face in the mirror, he wondered for a moment whether it wouldn't be easier for all concerned if he went insane right then and there.

He grimaced. Sadly, he'd never been a quitter.

And beneath the shock and anger, there was the tiniest tingle of curiosity. He wondered if the well had done something to him, or if he'd already stepped into a trap without noticing after all. The latter seemed unlikely and the fomer quite impossible, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that such a bizzare chain of events had to have some hidden meaning.

_Wishful thinking, Hatake. Life's plenty bizzarre as it is._

Well, that was true. What a mess.

At least his senses seemed to be working at the usual level. He would be able to track his target, even though he did not have the least idea what he'd do when he found it.

Die heroically, most probably.

Still, as long as he managed to take the thing with him, that was an acceptable development. And not completely unexpected, on this kind of mission.

Flipping the kunai over with a sigh, he tilted his head and continued shaving.

xXx

_Kagome has a boyfriend._

It was the first thing going through Higurashi Nanao's mind as her daughter stumbled sleepily into the kitchen, followed by one of the most beautiful men Nanao had ever seen. It was also the second and third, only the second time around 'boyfriend' had already been amended to 'man', because one look at those cool eyes was enough to make clear that he was definitely not a boy, but rather a possible Yakuza.

One with a lamentable taste in clothes -- much like her son's, if she came to think of it -- although not even the garish shirt could quite disguise the air of danger he exuded.

Well. Kagome had always had a thing for bad boys.

Surreptitiously, Nanao eyed the gap in the man's shirt collar, searching for tattoos; to her relief there were none to be seen. No missing fingers either, just large, strong, beautiful hands.

Nanao relaxed. _Ah, grandchildren_, she thought, promising herself that she would set fire to the well before the first of them was born.

Wiping her hands on a towel, she smiled beatifically at the newcomers. "Ah, Kagome! You're up early!" She bowed to the man, who bowed deeply back. "And who is this?" she tittered, pleased.

Kagome eyed her mother suspiciously. Nanao_ never_ tittered.

"Mama," she whispered, sidling closer, "This is Hatake Kakashi, from university. He called me yesterday because his appartment got flooded, so I invited him to stay with us for a few days. I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you!"

Nanao shrugged. "That's all right, dear. Did you have a pleasant night?"

Kagome blushed. "Er, sort of. It's not what you think," she whispered furiously, worried by the cheerful glint in her mother's eyes. "He has nothing to wear and I had to borrow some of Souta's clothes and we'll have to go shopping later and anyway--"

Her mother patted her hand gently. "Kagome."

"Yes?"

"Breathe."

"Oh. Okay."

"And if you could let go of my hand I could go and greet out guest properly."

Kagome gave a nervous laugh. "Er, sure."

But her mother had already turned around and was exchanging pleasantries with Kakashi.

"And what is your specialty?" she was asking, beaming up at him in a way that really didn't suit her age as far as Kagome was concerned.

"I am training to be a surgeon," he replied, not batting an eyelash.

_Ah_, Nanao thought, _that certainly explains the eyes_.

"Mama, where's Souta and jii-chan?" Kagome interjected.

"They've left for Hokkaido a while ago," Nanao said, looking at her daughter quizzically.

"That was today?"

"Yes. You really should sit down, Kagome. You've overworked yourself again. She never sleeps enough," she added confidentially to Kakashi.

Helping the flustered girl to the table, Kakashi smiled sweetly at her mother. "That's because she's so hard-working. Kagome-chan always gives her best," he said adoringly.

Nanao smiled. What a considerate young man!

Kagome let out a forced laugh. "Ah well, but Kakashi-san still has the better grades," she simpered.

As soon as her mother looked away, Kagome elbowed him in the side. "I appreciate you playing along and all, but don't you think you're laying it on a little too thick?" she hissed in his ear. "I bet Mama sees us married with three children already."

His breath was hot against her ear. "I hope she does," he murmured mildly. "Because otherwise she might start asking questions, and I still have no idea what street my flooded appartment is in, or why you lied to her in the first place."

Incensed, Kagome turned to him. "I made an executive decision, all right?"

His lips were entirely too close to her own. "You panicked, more likely." He waved a dismissive hand. "Lying to yourself is a bad habit."

"I don't recall asking you for advice," she muttered, pulling back. "I'm sure I wasn't the one sneaking into someone else's room in the middle of the night."

Kakashi leaned back as well, smiling absently as Nanao put breakfast on the table. As far as he was concerned, the day could only get better.

xXx

It must have been revenge.

Kakashi came to that conclusion pretty soon into what Kagome had innocuously dubbed their 'little shopping trip'. There was simply no other explanation for what the diabolical girl was doing to him.

What he did not realize was that, from one moment to the next, Kagome's life had gained a hitherto unknown meaning. Because, for the first time in her life, she had a real live puppet at her disposal. A beautiful male puppet with perfect proportions and no will of his own -- at least if she had her way -- and suddenly everything else faded into insignificance.

Her credit card limit?

Who cared.

Souta's school fees?

Seriously, now.

There were so many lights, gleaming surfaces and colorful displays, and next to her a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be shaped. Tugging Kakashi after her Kagome breezed through the aisles, drunk with power.

At the moment she was attacking him with a subtly checkered shirt that she insisted on leaving out of his pants, and a matching necklace that looked more like a dog collar that anything else. He was very aware of the symbolism.

Suspiciously, he watched out of the corner of his eye as she bounced around him, tucking the collar into place, and generally pulling and tweaking at the folds until they were arranged to her satisfaction.

Some time later Kakashi, who had never in his life spent more than three minutes in a store that did not sell porn, was discovering a hiterto unknown -- and, judging by the miserable expressions of the other men in the vicinity, possibly genetic -- trait: he hated shopping.

It had started out as a mild feeling of wrongness, a persistent itch at the back of his neck of the sort that usually alerted him to an ambush. Standing in the yellow light of the first boutique he looked down into Kagome's eyes and saw them take on an unfamiliar and slightly scary sheen.

It had gone downhill from there. By the nineteenth store he had developed a full-blown phobia, which he was now nursing behind a determinedly expressionless facade.

And yet he raised his arms obediently as Kagome forced him out of his current clothes and into yet another skin-tight t-shirt, cooing over how well the color matched his eyes.

Kakashi was not fooled. The purr in her voice was unable to fully disguise the manic glint in her eyes and for a moment he wished, quite irrationally, that he could just disappear. Which he could, if only he didn't still need her.

If only.

"What's your favourite color?" Kagome suddenly demanded.

He wondered whether it was a trick question. "Black," he replied cautiously. He supposed dark blue was all right too. Well, and olive green.

"Black is not a color," she retorted immediately. "Pick something else."

He resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Green then."

"Green doesn't suit you," she declared, and went off in search of pants.

As soon as her back was turned, Kakashi very deliberately kept his twitching fingers from clenching into fists.

Since the age of three, he had spent most of his life wearing one uniform or another. Being both notorious and powerful precluded taking part in many undercover missions, so there had been little opportunity to work in disguise -- a circumstance he sorely regretted right now.

Without previous experience it was slightly nauseating to hear Kagome pontificate about spring and winter colors while she tried to force him into yet another pale blue shirt, only infinitesimally different from the last three, equally blue shirts she'd had him try on.

He had a reputation for being calm and composed no matter how hopeless the situation. It was well earned, too, but then again he'd never experienced this particular ordeal.

Well, it didn't matter, he told himself. Cracking under the pressure just wouldn't do.

"Try these on!"

He turned around, dismayed to see only her wide blue eyes peek at him from behind a mountain of clothing. Resigned, he plucked the uppermost pair of pants from the heap and pulled the curtain closed behind him. They proved snug but comfortable, although they were worn and patched in places. Not for the first time, he wondered whether being fashionable simply meant wearing clothes that sensible people would have already thrown away.

There was a thin metal chain hanging from the belt loops (another of those fashion statements Kagome kept going on about?), along with strips of leather. The metal links were weak and easily broken, but the leather was thin and tough enough to strangle an enemy, a fact Kakashi registered with some approval as Kagome's unexpectedly timid voice reached him from behind the curtain.

"Can I see?"

And, as he pulled aside the piece of cloth with slightly more force than strictly necessary, "Oooooh, _perfect!_ It goes with the shirt too, see? And I think the color is just right for that white silk Oxford, too."

She beamed up at him, obviously expecting a reaction.

He mustered a weak smile in return while inwardly cautioning himself not to get his hopes up; at least as the shirt was concerned this was already the ninth one Kagome had pronounced perfect just before something better had caught her eye and she'd pounced, returning with yet another armful of nearly identical clothes.

Torture was like that: long, drawn-out and with the occasional reprieve so it wouldn't get boring. He watched her, waiting.

But strangely, she didn't seem inclined to run off this time. She continued to beam at him instead, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. "I think we should take these," she announced happily.

Kakashi nodded although he didn't believe her. She was sure to take off again soon, attracted by something else that was bright and shiny and overloaded with buckles and things. He wondered what she would do if he lied down and went to sleep right there on the changing room floor. The carpet looked nice and plushy and he hadn't felt this wrung out in a long time.

And still she stayed. "Don't you like it?" she inquired, a thread of worry in her voice. "We can get something else if you want!" She gave him a sweet smile. "The shops don't close until eight. We have a few hours left."

Kakashi paled. If there ever was a time for really good acting, that time was now. He forced himself to look deeply into her eyes, let his gaze turn dark and appreciative. "It's perfect," he purred desperately.

Kagome blushed. "Oh," she said, looking away with an embarrased little gasp. "_Oh_. Well, let me just pay for these then."

He resisted breaking out in a triumphant smile but it was difficult, so he quickly tugged the curtain shut and took off the strange new pants. One fraction of a second later Kagome was faced with a fully dressed Kakashi.

For some reason the blush intensified. "Oh," she said again. "That was quick."

Kakashi just shrugged, so she went to pay for her purchases and blushed again as he took the bulging bags from her with no visible effort save from an aesthetically pleasing firming of his _triceps brachii_, and headed out of the store.

He stopped in front of the entrance, looking lazily down at her. _What now_, his eyes seemed to say.

What now indeed. Flustered, Kagome tried to recall the items on her list, clapping her hands in excitement as she finally remembered.

"Shoes!" she exclaimed brightly.

It might have only been her imagination, but she thought his shoulders slumped a little.

She offered to take some of the bags off him, worried they might be too heavy. However, he obviously suffered from the same aversion to showing weakness as the rest of his gender, because he only shook his head with a pained smile and gestured for her to lead the way.

Sticking her nose up in the air, Kagome did so.

_Men_, she thought. _You just can't please them_.

Five minutes later, her ire was forgotten.

"Ah! One-hour cleaning!" she exclaimed, bouncing towards a small dry cleaning shop that was wedged between an ice vendor and an electronics store. "We can have your clothes cleaned here while we shop for shoes, and then you can put them on right away!"

Kakashi thought shortly about objecting to what seemed like a pointless expense, but decided he did not want to argue with the mad gleam lighting her eyes. "Sure," he said, approaching cautiously.

At least she was efficient when not confronted with rows upon rows of clothing articles. Five minutes later the clothes were safely deposited at the cleaner's and he had been sat on a low stool while Kagome hurried through shoe-filled aisles, assisted in her search by similarly fanatical-looking clerks.

Another half an hour later he was four pairs of shoes richer and, at Kagome's insistence, had replaced his worn double-heeled sandals with a white pair of tennis shoes.

As he stopped to admire a pretty fountain -- and finally allow the adrenaline to seep out of his bloodstream -- Kagome surreptitiously tried to throw the sandals into the next wastebin. He stopped her with a look that could have frozen a medium-sized hell, and transferred the sandals to the relative safety of his shoulder bag.

Kagome pouted at him, but he was having none of it.

After all, they were his favourite footwear.

xXx

"Godaime-sama? We seem to have... _misplaced_ Hatake." The Chuunin runner barely kept from fidgeting, suspecting that the news that one of her best Jounin seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth would not be met with raging enthusiasm.

He'd guessed correctly.

"You have?" Tsunade said crisply. "How odd."

"As far as we can say, he vanished somewhere around the border of Grass."

"Vanished, huh?"

The Chuunin squirmed. His name was Takashi and he'd secretly thought that his promotion to the Hokage's personal staff had been the best thing that happened in his long and fautless carreer. Now he wasn't so sure any longer.

"Without a trace, Hokage-sama," he finally admitted, head bowed.

"How long have you known?"

Takashi threw her a puzzled look. "Three hours."

There was a short silence. Tsunade's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Three hours and you only tell me this _now_?"

"Well, I still had to finish my run to the archive, and--"

"Don't even _try_ to excuse this," Tsunade hissed, satisfied when he jumped. "Well, then what are you still standing around for?" she barked. "Move and get me someone competent! I want Uzumaki, Hyuuga Neji, and Uchiha in here, and I want them _yesterday_!"

"Yes, Hokage-sama!"

Crossly, Tsunade watched him vanish in a puff of smoke.

Alone again, she opened a desk drawer, meticulously retrieving a bottle of sake and a cup. She poured until the liquid nearly sloshed over the rim, then brought the tiny cup to her lips and drained it in one gulp.

Of course, it had been a possibility all along. She knew the risks, and she had made sure he knew them too before he committed himself. But she had hoped that someone with his experience would find a way. Despite the fact that she often teased him about his loss of power, she had always secretly thought that the man he had become was infinitely more impressive than the boy he'd been.

Whatever the outcome, it was only right to send Naruto. When given a mission the boy was like a dog with a bone, and Kakashi had been his teacher.

Leaning back in her chair she closed her eyes, and waited for the screaming to begin.

xXx

Kakashi contemplated himself in the full-length mirror of yet another changing room, particularly fascinated with the length of leather wound around his throat and tied in a silly little knot and the matching metal-studded armbands. Then there were the shredded pants, and the t-shirt with the peculiar slogan "get killed -- get noticed". Kakashi was deeply suspicious of slogans in foreign languages, especially after asking Kagome what the words meant had resulted in much waving of hands and no clear answer at all, but all in all, he had emerged relatively unscathed.

Even if he looked ridiculous.

He smiled. No enemy would recognize him now. Looking underneath the underneath was all well and good, but virtually impossible when blinded by a pink and green monstrosity of a shirt with safety pins hanging from the hem and fishnet inlays which teasingly revealed the pale muscles stretching and bunching beneath.

Pushing the curtain aside, he stepped out.

Then he watched, fascinated, as Kagome's mouth pursed into a pout, quickly suppressed to make way to a blush, which in turn was followed by an intentionally vapid, starry-eyed gaze.

It didn't fool Kakashi, who recognized killing intent when he felt it. Behind those eyes lurked _murder_.

Kagome clenched her teeth.

It wasn't _fair._ Here she'd tried to dress him in clothes suited only for the most ridiculous of posers, and then he came out looking like _that -- _pale and smooth and mouthwatering and just a little bit dangerous.

"Oh, that's so _pretty!_" she said desperately, clasping her hands. _Please, look embarrassed. Please._

But he just gave her a cool nod, fixing her with that bland stare that made her feel as transparent as glass.

"The pink is very flattering," she added.

Kakashi blinked. "It is, isn't it?" he said, smiling innocently at her. "How good of you to say that. I was thinking of getting a beret in just that shade. I imagine it will look very dashing."

Kagome gave him a horrified look. "Sure," she choked out. "And here I thought you didn't like bright colors. Or, er, shopping." She was wringing her hands and avoiding his eyes. "My mistake. Ahahahaha."

"Ahaha," Kakashi echoed dutifully. "But no, not at all!" He leaned towards her, as if confiding a deep and terrible secret. "I _live_ for shopping. In fact, now that I don't have to wear that dreadful uniform any longer, I am just starting to discover what I missed." He gave a dramatic sigh. "Too bad the shops close in five minutes."

"Yeah," Kagome said gloomily. "Too bad. I guess we should head home, huh? Mama's making dinner."

Throwing one last longing look at the glittering storefronts, Kakashi shifted both the shopping bags and the heap of plastic-wrapped clothing to one hand. Woefully, Kagome watched his muscles coil and tighten under the load.

_What a waste. _

With a sigh, she trudged after him, hunting through her purse for the car keys.

Kakashi was loathe to admit it, but he was at a bit of a loss. It was not that he didn't know women, because he did. However, he had never known someone quite like Kagome.

She seemed so... manageable.

Easy to trick, easy to confuse, easy to manipulate. It was nearly boring.

There had been some hints of depth to her the night before, but right now that initial impression seemed like a mirage brought on by exhaustion and moonlight.

Nevertheless, the sheer _scope_ of her oddity was puzzling, even to a man who, through his exposure to the Green Beast of Konoha, should have been immune to weird.

Of course, Gai was a man and Kagome was a woman, and Kakashi was aware that there were as many different types of weird as there were leaves in Konoha. And yet... The women of his acquaintance were, by and large, competent killers. Many were beautiful, half were frankly crazy (a reasonable consequence of playing with knives all day -- and, he suspected, nail polish fumes) but none of them seemed to inhabit quite the fluffy, teddy bear populated plane Kagome's brain seemed stuck in.

Watching her was like watching a very bad ninja soap; he couldn't tear his eyes away because he was perpetually waiting with a sort of horrified fascination to see to what depths of incompetence the action would sink next.

xXx

Naruto was worried.

It was not a comfortable state of mind. He didn't like it. He probably shouldn't have yelled at the old hag for sending Kakashi out without backup, after all he was a grown man now and should have known better, but he'd done it anyway.

Sakura patted him on the back consolingly. "You'll find him. You know how he is -- I'm sure he got detained at some teahouse or other."

Naruto grinned. "Yeah. That, or some old lady wanted to cross a mountain."

Giggling, Sakura punched his arm. "Sounds just like Kakashi-sensei. Remember to box his ears for me if it turns out that the old lady wasn't quite that old, had really big breasts and got him drunk because he let her."

Rubbing his arm, Naruto shrugged. "Well, I can try."

"I wish I could go with you," she said with a small sigh. "Too many patients, too little time."

"I know," he said. "But Neji's with us, so we'll find him."

"And Sasuke," Sakura said quietly.

"Yeah. Sasuke. Anyway, when we're back you'll be the first to know, Sakura-chan. I promise."

Sakura hugged him. "I have to go. Good luck!"

xXx

"Here."

It took Kagome a moment to realize that the bundle Kakashi had just discreetly slipped into her hand felt an awful lot like money -- a rather large amount of it. Usually she wouldn't have objected (_Souta's school fees_, whined her long-forgotten conscience), but this was not exactly--

She looked up at him, confused. "How did you--"

Kakashi gave a negligent shrug.

Kagome paled. "Oh no. You--"

"Yes?"

"You _stole_ it!" she finally sputtered, torn between anger and panic. "They have cameras everywhere! You can't just go around stealing money! Oh god, they're going to throw us in _jail_, and what's Mama going to say, I can't _believe_ you--"

Kakashi merely gave her a bland look. "If it is the cameras you are worried about, that is not a problem. They are too slow for me."

Sidling closer, Kagome pressed herself up on tiptoes. "It's not the cameras!" she spat. "Well, it _is_ the cameras, but that's not the problem. The problem is the stealing! It's morally wrong! And despicable! And _wrong!_"

With an innocent smile, Kakashi slung an arm around her shoulders. "Don't you want to know how much it is?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"One hundred fifty grand," he said softly.

"What?"

"One--"

"I heard you the first time! Are you mad? Who did you steal so much money from?"

He gave a modest shrug. "Ah well, a little here, a little there, you know how it is."

"No, I _don't_ know! I don't go around emptying people's wallets when they aren't looking!"

"Anyway," he said casually, "it's about the amount you spent on clothes today, so I thought it would only be fair to return it as soon as possible."

Kagome pinned him with a disbelieving look. "Stop joking. No sane person would ever spend that much on clothes in a year, let alone a single shopping trip!"

His pitying expression was telling.

"I didn't!" Her lower lip trembled. "I _did_?"

"I'm afraid so."

Kagome buried her head in her hands. "Oh my god. I don't even _remember_..."

Kakashi watched her thoughtfully. "Actually, I might have an explanation for that. I didn't realize at first, but you were behaving rather strangely, weren't you, Kagome-san? I have seen other people display that kind of behaviour before, in battle. I believe they are called berserkers."

"Please, do go on," muttered Kagome sulkily. "First you break into my house, sneak into my bedroom, use me to launder money, and now you insult me too."

"But your window was open, Kagome-san," Kakashi purred. "It was practically an invitation. As to the rest, I plead guilty, but only because it's so much fun." He leaned back, watching her through half-lidded eyes. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Sulk," Kagome said. "I'm going to sulk."

xXx

Kakashi was getting old.

Not too old -- ANBU had lost his trail somewhere near the border, which was where he had actually started to make any effort to cover it, but with Neji and Sasuke on the team, it had taken Naruto less than an hour to pick it up again.

"Kakashi's getting old," Sasuke had said, disdainfully.

"Shut your trap," Naruto had hissed at him. "Or I'll shut it for you." He'd almost wished Sasuke would take him up on it, but the Uchiha had merely given a cool shrug and sped ahead through the trees.

"Left," said Neji, and then, "Here."

They came to a halt in the middle of a clearing. A rickety wooden well was the first thing Naruto noticed, and the Kyuubi reared its head at the trace of decay on the breeze.

Sasuke wrinkled his nose as he approached the well. "Time of death -- weeks ago," he muttered. "And now Kakashi's forgetting to clean up his messes, too," he said.

"He must have been in a hurry," said Neji.

The smell was overpowering now. Neither of them seemed too eager to go any closer to the source so Naruto took a deep breath and breezed past them.

"Sissies," he muttered in passing as he jumped lightly onto the rim, peering down into the darkness. And then he said nothing more.

"Yo, dobe," Sasuke said after a long minute. "The suspense is killing us."

But Naruto didn't answer.

He stared into the dark mouth of the well instead, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat, and wondered dizzily why his eyes were stinging.

Because at the bottom lay the broken body of Hatake Kakashi, obscenely white against the dark earth.


	3. Magnet

Thanks go out to my betas **questofdreams**, **karit** and **cinnamongrrl**. They helped a lot in making this chapter fit for public consumption.

* * *

x **Serendipity** x

_Chapter 3: Magnet_

Kakashi was not in a good mood.

He had left Kagome to sulk over his lack of morals and gone for a stroll through the city, as much to clear his head of any residual memories of that disgusting shopping trip as to get the lay of the place and possibly do something to further his mission.

So, after a jaunty wave good-bye to Kagome, he had jumped out of the window only to discover, mid-flight, that something was seriously wrong with his body. It wouldn't turn in the air the way he wanted it to, certainly not with the effortless ease he was accustomed to, and he had nearly broken his leg on landing.

In retrospect he was terribly grateful that Kagome, used to youkai, had not rushed to the window to see him clutch at his ankle before he hobbled away, cursing under his breath.

He'd been more careful from there on, taking to the streets at a controlled pace that allowed him to test the limits of his suddenly alien body. He had noticed quickly that he was fit enough, with none of the aches and pains he was used to feeling from his various scars. But his hearing was dulled, reduced to a fraction of what his memory insisted it should be, and his sense of smell felt equally stunted; formerly sharp scents seemed to run together, becoming muddled and indistinct.

Kakashi had not been able to pick up the specific trail of his quarry but his intuition, which still seemed to work in erratic bursts, had led him down to Ginza, where he had bought porn magazines and got assaulted by a group of bosozoku.

He beat them up.

Well, sort of. Back home, he would have been ashamed to even talk about it. Here, he felt strangely grateful to have made it out with no more than a few bruises. After all, there had been sixteen of them and it had taken him nearly ten minutes to leave them all unconscious and bleeding instead of the customary few seconds.

Now, three hours later, Kakashi sat in the shrine garden with his aching back propped against a tree, leafing disinterestedly through one of the magazines he'd acquired. He did not raise his head as he heard Kagome approach.

Undaunted, Kagome crouched down in front of him and peeked at his face.

"What happened to you? Your lip is bleeding!"

"Fight," he replied, turning the page on which two nubile young women by the names of Kyoko and Machiko were doing interesting and acrobatic things to each other.

Beneath the shadow of her bangs, Kagome paled. "You were mugged?"

"I am wearing pink. With netting," he said, secretly pleased when Kagome flushed guiltily. "And I do not know the city. It's not that much of a stretch."

Kagome fought a quick battle with her conscience, which she lost. "M'sorry," she finally muttered, feeling like a five year old. "But you shouldn't have gone out by yourself then," she added, and since she could not look him in the eyes she looked down instead, where Kyoko and Machiko lay sprawled across a two-page spread, beautifully captured in the midst of limber debauchery.

The ensuing blush that spread across her already rosy face was not from shame.

"_What_ are you reading?" she demanded, wishing she could feel righteously wrathful instead of strangely hot.

In the meantime Inner Kagome, the one who'd been fond of ogling Inuyasha's muscles back when she used to be a repressed but hormonal fourteen, cheered. _Omgomg he likes **women**!_

Inner Kagome had never had the best vocabulary. It was Kagome who did the talking, and she was much more erudite when it came to inserting her foot in her mouth by way of the kidneys.

"This is a holy place, you know," she said, and immediately wished she hadn't.

Kakashi shrugged, turning another page. He registered with approval that Kyoko and Machiko had obviously been provided a room with sufficient heating, then glanced at Kagome to see if she approved as well. After all, 'this is a holy place' could just as easily be translated as 'I'm having dirty thoughts when I really shouldn't, seeing as this is a holy place and all, and I'm sure Mama can smell porn at ninety paces even when she's not actually at home, and what are you _doing_, oh my god I'm really hot'.

And indeed, Kagome was still staring at the magazine and blushing prettily while she tried to look accusing instead of faintly turned on. She really was very cute, he thought, surprised—doubly so when embarrassed.

She'd caught him watching her too, but instead of fleeing she bent down even lower, looking up with a helpless expression. "It's _porn,_" she insisted faintly, but it was plain that her heart was not in it.

_Well._

It seemed he had found a fellow pervert, and she was flushed and pretty and smelled good, and she was also leaning toward him so far she was about to fall, trying to see better. Kakashi approved of that, too.

He smiled at her. "Erotic literature," he corrected, turning the page.

Kagome pouted and bent forward even further, the better to condemn the lewdness. "That would require _text,_" she said. She sounded slightly breathless.

Kakashi's finger moved over the page until it reached a minuscule caption. "Indeed," he concurred equably. "It's right here, although I do agree that the script is rather small. 'Oh, it's still so warm in here, Machiko-san, exclaims Kyoko, running a slender finger down her throat. Do you feel it too?' And there's some more on the next page—"

"I'm sorry," said Kagome, forcibly trying to jolt her frontal lobe into functioning again. "I don't know how I missed that. It's positively poetic. I must have been distracted by the overabundance of mammaries." Which, at least in Kyoko's case, were annoyingly plentiful.

Kakashi's lips curved, catlike. "That's too many complicated words for my poor brain to process, Kagome-san. Regardless, I had no idea your tastes ran that way. I find it . . . intriguing, to say the least." He patted the grass next to him. "Please, have a seat. You are likely to fall over if you lean forward any further."

She scowled at him. "They _don't_," she grunted but she sat, staring fixedly ahead at the main house and wishing he would catch on fire for being such a lecherous reprobate.

Kakashi did not accomodate her. He leaned back instead, propping the magazine against one upraised knee exactly at the right angle for her to see out of the corner of her eye that Machiko was fond of garters with rosebuds on them but not all that fond of underwear.

Kagome closed her eyes, counted to ten (which never helped, but rather wound her up further), and decided it was past time to start behaving like an adult again. That way, at least one of them would.

On the other hand, if one was a man the interest in nude women—and garters—was as adult as it got. And he _had_ been in a fight, which meant he was probably in pain but too manly to admit it. Even Kagome knew that the promise of sex was as good as two aspirin for taking a man's mind off unpleasant things. It had definitely worked with Miroku and it might have worked with Inuyasha if he hadn't been so unnaturally repressed and always so tightly wound he seemed one step away from explosion.

It startled her to realize that she missed Miroku more than she did Inuyasha.

Idly, she wondered what the houshi would think of her now. The answer was not pretty. He would probably take one look at her sad, crazy, _petty_ adult self and stick her full of ofudas in the attempt to exorcise whatever demon had taken over her body during his absence.

Kagome had read somewhere that the human body renewed itself every seven years – well, except for nerves, which would explain why hers were so overworked and quite frankly unstable. And of course, adulthood had done a number on her brain too. It had aged it, for one. For all she knew her brain could have shrivelled to a pea and was now being taken over by an extraterrestrial intelligence bent on conquering the planet.

"Invasion of the body snatchers," she muttered miserably. Which was as good an explanation as any for sudden insanity.

"Pardon?" said Kakashi, eyes still on his copulational pamphlet, and Kagome shook her head, staring at the grass.

No man, not even a strange ninja from another dimension, would want a girl whose body was inhabited by depressed aliens. Which was a pity, because looking at him made her spine tingle and her toes curl.

Kagome gave a little dejected sniff. "It's nothing," she said.

Kakashi shrugged and read on. Kagome hugged her knees to her chin, feeling fourteen again – all ups and downs, only without the ups because her body was older now and her hormones only knew how to go down and further down. She'd liked the numbness better, the endless grey days of poring over textbooks and cutting into the dead bodies of people she didn't know.

But that was before he'd barged in through her window, smelling of forest and youkai and making her sick with longing—and, obviously, mad cow disease as well.

Had that really just happened yesterday?

Their first awkward encounter seemed so far away already.

Not that there hadn't been plenty of awkward later, especially once she had stuck him in flashy spandex, but it had grown so quickly into a familiar kind of awkward. And now he was reading porn on her family's shrine grounds, under the Goshinboku which she both loved and hated because of all the memories it brought, and it made her want to strip him naked and roll with him across the grass.

It was so sudden. It was a monumental step forward after she had been standing still for so long. It seemed like she had waited forever for something to happen, for the well to open and set her in motion. But now that it had, moving forward felt like balancing blindfolded on the edge of a cliff.

And, just a little, she wondered what falling would feel like.

"I'm behaving like a lunatic," she said, realizing it was the truth. She was surprised to feel a measure of glee at the thought, foreign and sharp.

She leaned into Kakashi and grinned up at him. All of a sudden she was feeling liberated and had no idea why.

"You must think I'm insane," she told him happily.

Kakashi loped an insouciant arm around her shoulders. The opportunity to touch a live female was just too good to pass up, even if she was still dressed. "I can't say it hasn't occured to me once or twice," he said easily.

"You know," she whispered, looking up at him, "I think you broke me. I was quite functional before you got here. Well," she amended, "Mostly functional. And then you came through the window and brought the crazy right along with you. I think It's because of how you smell," she added, stretching a little to catch a whiff of deep forest on the skin of his throat. "It's like a drug."

A breeze ruffled her hair, whipping the strands across his pink-clad chest and Kakashi let go of his magazine to brush them behind her ear. The wind caught the glossy pages, slapping them against each other.

"You've lost your place," Kagome remarked.

Kakashi ignored her. "A good drug or a bad drug?" he asked.

Kagome thought that the wind smelled like spring, and the grass was a fresh, young green. And then she thought about the past three years and couldn't remember a single thing, apart from a vague suspicion that they had included lab coats and books and dead people, one of which was her. Only now she was strangely alive again, because he'd woken her up when she hadn't even known she slept.

"Good," she said. And then, more firmly, "_Good._"

Kakashi did not say anything. But he thought that the crazy girl was starting to make a curious kind of sense, and the thought made him feel uneasy.

He squeezed her shoulder anyway. He was quite sure he was apologizing for _something_ although he didn't really know what; quite possibly life in general.

Kagome had never thought that existential doubt could mix so well with plain, old-fashioned lust, but there it was.

And the worst of it was that all of a sudden, inexplicably, she wanted him to like her. "I'm usually not like this," she said. "My friends—" The word tasted strange and hollow, so she licked her lips and tried again, "My friends actually think I'm _too _well-adjusted. But I—" here she frowned a little and cocked her head like she was trying to make sense of a particularly complicated puzzle, "I actually think I was dead and nobody noticed."

They sat for a while in companionable silence.

Kagome had relaxed into him and Kakashi was becoming more and more aware of the warm weight of her nestled against his side.

"Well," he said slowly, realizing that he knew quite well what being dead felt like. "It happens."

Suddenly, a large part of his own life made a horrible sort of sense. It was like he'd watched his life through a lens all along and someone had come and skewed it, and the crooked view was actually the correct one. It told him that nearly every decision he had taken so far was the wrong one, starting with the conclusions he'd drawn from his father's disgrace up to the first moments he'd spent over a grave of his own doing.

He'd thought that the grave was Obito's, when in fact it had been his own all along.

It really was stupidly, horribly simple now that he thought about it, _really_ thought about the whole of it instead of that tiny time loop of missed opportunities and death. He had never really liked Obito, but he had not hated him enough either, so when Obito had died he'd fallen prey to an amorphous, insidious guilt. It had made him realize he liked Hatake Kakashi even less than he'd liked the loudmouthed Uchiha, so he'd buried him along with Obito's body and started being late and reading porn where everyone could see — Obito's habits in Kakashi's body while Kakashi with his rules and arrogant brilliance had since lain under six feet of earth in a cold sleep.

Only now, horrifyingly, Obito was gone and Kakashi was back with no idea how to be himself, apart perhaps from reading porn he did not like all that much because it wasn't _real_, and killing people, which he currently wasn't very good at either.

Next to him Kagome gave a sigh and squirmed, pressing her breast into his side.

"It's not easy to be alive," she said, breathing deeply of the clean air. "But right now, it's all right."

Kakashi nodded, trying to ignore everywhere they touched and thinking that perhaps he remembered something about being himself after all. Himself at sixteen, at any rate.

Shifting, he picked up the discarded magazine and rolled it up neatly, shoving it into the back pocket of his fashionable pants.

"Mhm," he said.

With a little smile, Kagome leaned her head against his shoulder and fell asleep with the instant ease of interns everywhere.

Looking at her face in the gold-speckled shadow of the great tree, Kakashi realized that he liked crazy girls and wondered what, if anything, he should do about it.

Eventually he decided to be unprofessional and let the quivering flecks of sunlight lull him to sleep, nose down in Kagome's strawberry-scented hair.


End file.
